A question about a raid configuration

[Bearcat]

Hi guys,

I have the chance to buy another 120 Gb OCZ Vertex 3 SSD from a friend of mine cheap and I was considering setting up a Raid Configuration on my PC. My question is: Will it give me much of a boost in performance to make it worth my while? I have never used a Raid setup before, so I would appreciate all input.

From the "hopeless tech geek", Bearcat

[hal9000]

Theoretically speaking you should get around double the speed running RAID0, somewhere around 1000MB/s sequential.

In practical terms though, it's a bit different because with an SSD, speeds are near instant anyway when using Windows, so the gains will be much less now than what they were 5 or 10 years ago when going from 50MB/s to 100MB/s in RAID made a big difference. The bigger the file size to read / write, the bigger the boost.

The downside is that you lose TRIM support which is pretty important for the life and performance of the drive(s). You would need to use the optimize SSD tools which come with defrag software like Diskeeper and O&O Defrag to compensate.

Obviously, it will double your chances of losing the contents of the drives through drive failure and repair / recovery can also potentially be a lot more difficult.

[BigGuy]

Hey Uncle Bear, if you decide not to do a raid configuration, dad said he would buy the OCZ SSD for his new computer. After reading hal's post, I don't think I would want to do it, not if it means losing trim support. And besides that, isn't your PC fast enough the way it is?

[A Guy]

I think with SSDs, after a point it is just a "numbers and bragging rights" thing. I would agree that the downside almost assuredly negates the real feel difference you will experience. If you need a 10 or 20 second boot, then you need more free time, lol. Have a read, interesting:

http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews/raid0-the-ssd-simple-to-build-and-lightning-fast/

A Guy

[Bearcat]

@ hal and A Guy Thanks you two for bringing me back to reality! I knew I could count on you guys to set me straight!

@ BigGuy Tell your dad that Jessie wants a $100 for the SSD. It is exactly the same model as mine. I plugged it into my system and it works just fine, so I'm not sure why he was having problems.

[jelson]

The downside is that you lose TRIM support which is pretty important for the life and performance of the drive(s). You would need to use the optimize SSD tools which come with defrag software like Diskeeper and O&O Defrag to compensate.

hal you bought up a question that's in the back of my mind. I just finished assembling a new machine and installing Win7. I have a license for Diskeeper 2011 Pro with HyperFast (been using it on my XP machine)

I know I need to turn off Windows Defrag but have been wondering whether to allow Diskeeper to touch the crucial m4 SSD2 (64GB) in my new machine or not. What's the story there?

[hal9000]

As you have installed Win 7 which will enable TRIM if your drive supports it, the need for Diskeeper to use Hyperfast is a lot less than when on XP.

Although Hyperfast (and competing alternatives) have been out a couple of years now, there still seems to be no clear evidence whether any of these 'optimizations' actually work especially if TRIM is enabled. Someone will say it sped up their SSD, the next person will say it made no difference, another will say it made their drive slower. Unless I'm mistaken, Hyperfast consolidates free space which still must include a certain amount of writes to do its job effectively.

In my opinion, if you have XP, RAID, or no TRIM, it's worth trying out. If you have Win 7 and TRIM, let them do the job for you.

[BigGuy]

Wow, cool! Dad says he will take it at that price.

@ hal Thank you for sharing your opinion on Diskeeper Hyperfast. I was reading about it myself, after I bought my SSD and like you, I noticed that some people like it and some don't. I decided to stay with TRIM for myself.

[Bearcat]

Sounds good Buddy. I still have the SSD and will let Jessie know we will buy it from him.

@ hal Yeah, I read up on the pros and cons of using something like Diskeeper Hyperfast myself, and decided there wasn't enough conclusive evidence to support the need for using it.

[jelson]

@hal Thanks, man I'll just let Windows handle the SSD & only allow Diskeeper to do it's Intelliwrite function